The Prince and the Plunder

A book on how Britain took one boy and piles of treasures from Ethiopia

Tag: British Museum

Gold disc showing Virgin Mary and infant Christ

Published / by Andrew Heavens / Leave a Comment

What: Gold disc “from the cross on the altar at Magdala” showing the Virgin Mary and infant Christ, bought from Col W J Holt

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

Photo: The British Museum charges people to reproduce images of things in its collection, even plundered things. My budget won’t stretch that far, so you’ll have to go to the museum website to see the disc as it looks today – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1900-0711-2

Provenance: One of three gold discs described in the museum’s temporary register as “from the cross on the altar at Magdala”

Details and references:
Museum number: Af1900,0711.2
See AOA Archive – letters from Colonel Hunt regarding the purchase, 9 June, 3 & 14 July 1900
According to The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Yeomanry Cavalry List – 1890,
Colonel W. J. Holt … Served in the Abyssinian campaign in 868, as Provost Marshal at Zoula, and subsequently in the Transport Train ; was attacked by a large force at Belago Pass whilst in charge of Convoy and his conduct on the occasion met with the entire approval of Lord Napier.

Gold disc showing angel

Published / by Andrew Heavens / Leave a Comment

What: Gold disc “from the cross on the altar at Magdala” showing an angel, bought from Col W J Holt

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

Photo: The British Museum charges people to reproduce images of things in its collection, even plundered things. My budget won’t stretch that far, so you’ll have to go to the museum website to see the disc as it looks today – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1900-0711-3

Provenance: One of three gold discs described in the museum’s temporary register as “from the cross on the altar at Magdala”

Details and references:
Museum number: Af1900,0711.3
See AOA Archive – letters from Colonel Hunt regarding the purchase, 9 June, 3 & 14 July 1900
According to The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Yeomanry Cavalry List – 1890,
“Colonel W. J. Holt … Served in the Abyssinian campaign in 868, as Provost Marshal at Zoula, and subsequently in the Transport Train ; was attacked by a large force at Belago Pass whilst in charge of Convoy and his conduct on the occasion met with the entire approval of Lord Napier.”

Gold disc showing crucifixion

Published / by Andrew Heavens / Leave a Comment

What: Gold disc “from the cross on the altar at Magdala” showing the crucifixion, bought from Col W J Holt

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

Photo: The British Museum charges people to reproduce images of things in its collection, even plundered things. My budget won’t stretch that far, so you’ll have to go to the museum website to see the disc as it looks today – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1900-0711-1

Provenance: One of three gold discs described in the museum’s temporary register as “from the cross on the altar at Magdala”

Details and references:
Museum number: Af1900,0711.1
See AOA Archive – letters from Colonel Hunt regarding the purchase, 9 June, 3 & 14 July 1900
According to The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Yeomanry Cavalry List – 1890, “Colonel W. J. Holt … Served in the Abyssinian campaign in 868, as Provost Marshal at Zoula, and subsequently in the Transport Train ; was attacked by a large force at Belago Pass whilst in charge of Convoy and his conduct on the occasion met with the entire approval of Lord Napier (Medal and promoted to Captain, unattached).”

Queen Tirunesh’s Book of Psalms

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What: A book of Psalms, belonged to Queen Tirunesh, the wife of King of Kings Tewodros II and mother of Prince Alamayu

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

Photo: There is no picture in the British Museum catalogue entry – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1912-0410-37-b

With this book, a fable comes to life on a museum shelf. There was one story that everyone knew about Alamayu’s mother: the story about the time Tewodros interrupted her as she was reading the Bible’s Book of Psalms.

The queen turned to him coldly and told him to go away, saying she was conversing with a greater king than him. The story was repeated so often, and made its point so clearly, that it must have been a parable. But again, there it is, her actual copy of King David’s hymns and laments, in the British Museum.

Someone who visited Alamayu on the Isle of Wight described how the queen’s wood-covered Psalter was one of the boy’s most prized possessions. Here is the article in the Oct. 29, 1869 issue of The Star newspaper:

The Star, Oct. 29, 1869, Page 4

The British Museum doesn’t make a lot of the book. There’s no picture on its website and, like Alamayu’s necklace, it is not on display. That is hardly surprising. Ethiopian Books of Psalms are relatively common, one of the best-represented classes of sacred literature in collections of Ethiopic manuscripts. Most of them aren’t meant to be rarefied treasures. They are books for regular readings, daily devotions and prayers. Many, like this one, come with a leather carrying case and shoulder strap so people can lug them around with their baggage.

This one’s real value is in the story and in the details that must have reminded Alamayu of his mother – the small motifs next to the black and red text, the ‘square of red damask silk with floral designs in yellow and green’ set into the back. A small square mirror set in the inside cover would have caught the reflections of his mother’s face. It was not there for cosmetic reasons. Mirrors, which appear on a number of Ethiopian manuscripts, can be symbols of transcendence, of looking through something to something else or somewhere else.

‘It shows the importance of a prayer book,’ the Rev. Belete Assefa, a London-based priest from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, told me. ‘It’s a reflection of the Kingdom of God, a reflection of heaven.’

Details:

The British Museum catalogue entry reads: “Book of Psalms previously belonging to Emperor Tewodros II’s wife. The pages are made of vellum and the text is hand written in black and red ink with occasional decorative panels of floral motifs. The book is bound in red leather covered wooden boards. The front and back covers are finely tooled with borders of diamonds, circles and interlacing designs. A central panel contains a finely tooled hand cross inlaid with five metal (?) studs at the base and and eighteen silver (?) studs around the cross. The inside front cover of tooled red leather is inlaid with a small square mirror with a border of silver (?) decorated with punched designs. The back inside cover of tooled red leather is inset with a square of red damask silk with floral designs in yellow and green with some metalic threads.”

Museum number: Af1912,0410.37.
Acquisition name: Donated by: Mrs Cornelia Mary Speedy
Field Collection by: Capt Tristram C S Speedy
Acquisition date: 1912

Alamayu’s necklace

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What: A necklace of silver and glass beads threaded onto blue silk cord, worn by Prince Alamayu. He was photographed and painted many times wearing it.

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

Photo: The British Museum charges people to reproduce images of things in its collection, even plundered things. My budget won’t stretch that far, so you’ll have to go to the museum website to see the necklace as it looks today – britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1912-0410-7

Here are some of the photos and pictures of Alamayu wearing it – two in Ethiopia soon after the Battle of Maqdala, one on Malta and the rest soon after his arrival in Britain in 1868.

There it is on the British Museum website, that necklace, the one Alamayu wore in the first photograph the Royal Engineers took of him when he was still reeling from the shock of war. You can see him wearing it again and again in the black-and-white engravings and the staged studio photographs on his rush out of Ethiopia and his first years in Britain.

It is still a jolt to see it today, in three dimensions, in colour, like the jolt when the colour floods into the old First World War footage in Peter Jackson’s documentary film They Shall Not Grow Old, something
out of distant history shifting into present reality.

Twenty-three teardrop or shell-shaped silver pendants, separated by bright red and white glass beads and threaded onto a blue silk cord. What had once been an emblem of rank for Dejazmatch Alamayu must have become something much more personal, something of home to hold on to as the world kept shifting from Ethiopia, to Britain, to India, back to Britain. He may have got a bit more tired of it as photographers kept insisting on him wearing it, even over his Western clothes.

It became a prop, a shorthand for the exotic, and disappeared from his portraits as he got older. The necklace ended up with Speedy – something of Alamayu for him to hold on to.

Details:

The British Museum catalogue entry describes a “necklace of silver and glass beads threaded onto blue silk cord, previously owned by Prince Alamayu , Son of Emperor Tewodros of Ethiopia”.

Museum number: Af1912,0410.7
Donated by: Mrs Cornelia Mary Speedy
Field Collection by: Capt Tristram C S Speedy

Acquisition date: 1912

Part of an early Byzantine alabaster statue with leaf design, from Adulis

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What: Fragment of a 6th century white marble relief sculpture carved with a cross within a wreath, taken during Britain’s Abyssinian Expedition during a hit-and-run archaeological dig at Adulis in modern day Eritrea

Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG

The British Museum database entry, which has a picture, reads: “Corner of a relief sculpture panel; alabaster; carved with a double border with a leaf design; within the borders was a circular motif, now largely destroyed; one edge has been cut down as though to fit in a groove, and may be part of a screen formerly supported by pilasters.”

Museum number: 1868,1005.16


The story of the dig

Captain W. Goodfellow of the Royal Engineers made some quick excavations in Adulis (in modern day Eritrea) in the aftermath of the seige, from May 28 to June 9 1868.

Below is his report, as it appeared in the official record of the expedition, compiled by Holland and Hozier.

Adulis

Towards the conclusion of the campaign the Commander-in-Chief directed Captain W. Goodfellow, R.E., to make some excavations among the ruins of the ancient Adulis. The following is the report of that officer addressed to the Assistant-Quartermaster-General of the Force, and dated the 9th June, 1868:-

I have the honour to report that in accordance with the wishes of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, as communicated to me at Antalo on the 14th ultimo, I lost no time on coming to Zula, arriving here on the 24th ultimo.
2. On informing the Commanding Engineer that I had been directed to apply to him for a working party to enable me to make excavations with a view to discovering some remains of ruins of ancient Adulis, I was told that owing to the amount of work in hand just at that time I could not have more than 25 men of the Madras Sappers and Miners; with this small party, however, I at once made a commencement. Three narrow trenches being cut into some of the tumuli the walls and foundations of old buildings were discovered. At one spot some cut stone columns were found, and this induced me to remove more of the debris in the immediate vicinity, when the outline of a building, as shown in the accompanying plan, was discernable. I also ascertained by excavation that the foundations of this building, in which the bases of the cut-stone columns were found in true position, were 13 feet deep.
The columns, judging from the portions lying about, were apparently in their original state built up, clamped with iron and run with lead.
4. I have been unable to discover any capitals to suit the stone columns, nor is there any trace of how the roof of this building was supported.
As shown on the plan, the building was erected east and west; at the last end there are the remains of may once have been an altar, and the masonry exposed leads to the supposition that the last end was shaped in the form of an apex.
5. During the progress of the excavation fragments of carved marble, flat pieces of alabaster, having one side well-polished, were dug up, and some fragments of marble shafts; also one carved capital in marble, which may be referable to Byzantine architecture. Rough drawings of all these fragments are herewith submitted, and may prove interesting to those possessing more archaeological knowledge than I can lay claim to.
6. On one of the last slabs found there is a carved cross, which lends strength to the supposition that the building now exposed was one of the early Christian Churches, but whether it stands on the debris of still older buildings or not I have been unable to determine, as the excavations have scarcely been carried deep enough.
7. Besides the marble fragments, shreds of different descriptions of pottery have been found in the debris, but I regret to add, only one coin, which it is just possible that those possessing the requisite knowledge in such matters may be able to decipher.
8. The Madras Sappers and Miners, being under orders to embark for India, the detachment at Adulis was withdrawn on the 5th instant, and on the 7th instant I was permitted to avail myself of the services of one company of Bombay Sappers and Miners (80 men). Notwithstanding the great heat and difficulties about supplying the men with such an allowance of water as would satisfy them, I have had most willing and industrious excavators, and it is much to be regretted that there is not time, now that the campaign is over and all the arrangements for excavating the country complete, to continue this work, so as to throw light on the history of some of the hidden things of the past.”

The following is the report by the officer in charge of the Department of Antiquities of the British Museum, on the articles found at Adulis, which were presented to that Institution:-

“Mr Franks has the honour to report that two cases have been received from the India Office, containing various fragments of marble excavated by the British troops in Abyssinia. They appear to have been chiefly found amid the ruins of a church at Adulis, near Annesley Bay, a view of which has been published in the ‘Illustrated London News’ for September 5, 1868.
The most important of the specimens are the following:-

  1. A white marble capital
  2. Two portions of marble shafts
  3. see above
  4. Part of a bas-relief representing a cross.
  5. Part of another similar
  6. Various fragments of marble and alabaster vessels.
  7. The fragments of an earthern vessel.

These objects are not of great archaeological value, but considering the distant spot on which they were found, and the light which they throw on the state of the decorative arts in Abyssinia in early times, they are well worthy of a place in the Museum.”